Still silence prevailed. After a time, Richard Arden poured brandy and water suddenly into his glass. "Think of that fellow, that uncle of mine--pretty uncle! Kind relation--rolling in money! He sends for me simply to tell me that he won't give me a guinea. He might have waited till he was asked. If he had nothing better to say, he need not have given me the trouble of going to his odious, bleak study, to hear all his vulgar advice and arithmetic, ending in--what do you think? He says that I'm to be had up in the bankrupt court, and when all that is over he'll get me appointed a ticket-taker on a railway, or a clerk in a pawn-office, or something. By Heaven! when I think of it, I wonder how I kept my temper. I'm not quite driven to those curious expedients, that he seems to think so natural. I've some cards still left in my hand, and I'll play them first, if it is the same to him; and, hang it! my luck can't always run the same way. I'll give it another chance before I give up, and to-morrow morning things may be very different with me." "It's an awful pity you quarrelled with Longcluse!" exclaimed Vandeleur. "That's done, and can't be undone," said Richard Arden, resuming his cigar. "I wonder why you quarrelled with him. Why, good heavens! that man is made of money, and he got you safe out of that fellow's clutches--I forget his name--about that bet with Mr. Slanter, don't you remember--and he was so very kind about it; and I'm sure he'd shake hands if you'd only ask him, and one way or another he'd pull you through." "I can't ask him, and I won't; he may ask _me_ if he likes. I'm very sure there is nothing he would like better, for fifty reasons, than to be on good terms with me again, and I have no wish to quarrel any more than he has. But if there is to be a reconciliation, I can't begin it. He must make the overtures, and that's all." "He seemed such an awfully jolly fellow that time. And it is such a frightful state we are both in. I never came such a mucker before in my life. I know him pretty well. I met him at Lady May Penrose's, and at the Playfairs', and one night I walked home with him from the opera. It is an awful pity you are not on terms with him, and--by Jove! I must go and have something to eat; it is near eight o'clock."